1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telecommunication cable including optical fiber modules. For example, the cable is a monomode fiber cable for transmitting high bit rate telephone and/or computer signals, in particular in a local area network or between telephone central offices or other switching or routing systems.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,155,789 discloses a telecommunication cable consisting of a plurality of optical fibers disposed in a jacket and divided into modules each enclosed in a thin retaining sheath that is easy to tear. The retaining sheaths hold the modules together and are in contact with the optical fibers to clamp them together without decoupling the optical fibers. The jacket, which may have an inner layer, which is preferably extruded, and a second layer which is outer and provides the finished presentation of the cable, is in contact with the module retaining sheaths to constitute a compact assembly.
The number of optical fibers in the above kind of cable can be very large, and can exceed a few hundred or even a few thousand. This high number of fibers gives rise to practical problems, especially when connecting the ends of the optical fibers in one cable to the ends of optical fibers in one or more other cables. The number of different colors used for the module retaining sheaths is typically limited to around twelve. Consequently, if the cable comprises a very large number of optical fibers divided into modules with from three to around twelve fibers per module, for example, the cable includes several modules of the same color. The low number of retaining sheath colors makes it difficult to identify the modules and to fan them out and assemble them into subassemblies respectively to be connected to other cables, and can lead to connection errors.